Hands
by BlackDandelion
Summary: 4 couples in the aftermath - holding hands. Post-DH.


**Hands **by Blackdandelion

Author's note _This is how I felt after I'd finished reading Deathly Hallows. I'm warning you: it's sappy and mushy and will make even the most romantic person feel icky. _

"Are we gonna talk about it?" he asks. They're lying on grass, it's green and there are no dead bodies on it, and he's holding her hand, but her fingers keep brushing against his thigh and he feels so nervous that he could eat eleven chocolate frogs.

"Talk about what?" she asks, not looking at him but at the stars as if this is the first time she can just _look_ without looking for bad dark sweeping guys or something that will knock Harry off his broom or a hippogriff with Sirius Black on it.

"Me. Leaving. You crying?" he tells her - his tone is saying _remember? _but his heart is saying _forget it. _

She turns her head towards him and as her eyes - wise, all-knowing, _hers_ - meet his, he shudders.

"Talk."

"I'm sorry." He's clumsy, he knows. "I'm sorry, I ever, ever made you cry. That I was selfish and bloody upset and if I was someone else I'd be giving myself a right beating."

She doesn't answer, but her fingers have stopped moving against his thigh and she's clasping his hand tightly.

"And I'm sorry that I ever said anything about you and Harry - because I was being a right idiot. And I'm sorry it took me seven years to realize that you are everything. And I'm sorry that I love you because you deserve someone so much better."

She still doesn't answer, but it's different this time - because she's rolled on top of him and her hands are all over his face and she's kissing him like _he's_ the reason her hair is bushy and her eyes wise.

* * *

><p>His hands touch her shoulder, but she doesn't turn around. She is leaning against the rail of the balcony, staring down at the yard. He can see her mother and father, standing under a tree, holding each other together as if letting go meant shattering into thousands of pieces.<p>

"Ginny."

She doesn't move. Nothing about her shows that she has heard him, that she understands what he is saying.

"Have you eaten?" He feels like a mother hen, but it's been a day and she hasn't touched anything, hasn't moved since she moved up here.

"I like seeing them all," she says to the wind, "I just want to stay here and know that they are safe and have each other. I don't want to talk, I don't want to cry. I just want to know that the people I still have, that they're safe."

Cautiously, he wraps his arms around her waist and when she doesn't protest lays his head on her shoulder.

"There is no point in talking and crying because it serves no purpose." Her voice is the same as the day of Dumbledore's funeral. "They're dead. And they're going to be dead." Steely and confident, but underneath it's all tears and despair.

"Crying isn't for them, Gin. It's for you." She still doesn't answer, so he continues. "You need to talk to them, because they are all you have. You're not dead, Ginny, you can't watch them, you can't protect them. All you can do is love them."

* * *

><p>He can not feel anything.<p>

He's been miserable so long, he forgot how to be happy. He's cried so much, he's forgot how to laugh. He's been afraid so long, that he forgot how to just breathe.

There's a blond girl standing next to him. She has a huge flower in her hair and green glitter on her eyelids.

"I am Draco Malfoy." That's all he needs to tell her. Her brain should be forming the thought. _Bad man. Bad man. _

"I am Luna Lovegood." He knows that, of course he knows that. She was locked in his basement for months, for Christ sake. He had watched her sleep, given her chocolate when no one else was looking and made sure Wormtail kept his icky hands off of her.

"I wasn't introducing myself."

She looks up, huge eyes focusing on his nose, cross-eyed. "Oh, I know."

Her voice is so light, breezy, serene. It should annoy the hell out of him. Instead, he feels guilty.

"You shouldn't be holding my hand."

She looks down at their hands, hers clutching his - nails digging into the flesh.

"Why not?"

"I've killed people."

She watches him, then she makes a giggling sound - as if laughter is caught in her throat, to afraid to exit into this world.

"So have I. Does that define us?"

He says nothing, but he squeezes her hand a little.

* * *

><p>"Je t'aime."<p>

"I know," he wraps an arm around her slender frame and silently they watch his parents. Arthur is holding Molly as if she was the only thing that can keep him from leaving earth and fleeing.

"I thought you should know."

"I'll always know."

Her wedding band glitters as she raises a hand and traces his scars lightly.

"As will I."

There's silence, because death still hasn't left the building. There is still a scent of despair and irrevocable actions in the air and Bill just wants to be at Gringotts with numbers and calculus that make sense.

"I feel like nothing is logical anymore," he tells her and she stops her tracing to catch his doubting face into her slender hands. Her lower lip is trembling and she looks so vicious he wonders how he will ever get through a lifetime with her.

"1+1 = 2. It's still true, Bill. Never doubt the world. Do not doubt us."

And when she moves to kiss his scars, she's so French and so beautiful and death is putting on his jacket and walking out the door.

* * *

><p>In the end, it takes Ron to make Ginny come down from the balcony. Hermione and Harry watch as he wraps one finger around her wrist and makes her face him.<p>

"I don't want to talk about it." She's pissed off, because Ron always makes her feel pissed off.

"You don't have to," he smiles, "but Fred wouldn't want you starving yourself. Harry likes his girls curvy, remember?" And his teasing smile is so infuriating that she takes a swing at him, but he moves fast down the stairwell and she follows - screaming every profanity she's learned during the war.

Hermione and Harry exchange a look - a exasperated 'oh good god, Ron' look - and start running after the two siblings.


End file.
